Often, our biggest fears as climbers are usually catastrophic events, such as the collapse of a serac, rock fall, or the sudden failure of a rope. Much of our safety training and mental attention focuses on minimizing the risks of catastrophic failures. Equally if not more important is attention to incremental minor failures, which over the course of time can lead to consequences as serious as those caused by catastrophic failures. One such incremental failure is carrying too much weight.

	Heavy Pack by Courtenay Schurman

Rationalizing a few extra pounds or even ounces in your backpack is easy, thinking that at the worst, this weight might slow you down or leave you sore when you get back to your car. But extra weight has the potential to ruin a trip or even kill, and should be taken seriously.

Case 1) A trip leader, who is in great shape and not particularly fond of freeze-dried food, packs a 65 pound pack including lots of group gear. At the trailhead a sense of fairness inhibits the leader from redistributing extra group gear to people who brought lighter personal gear. During the approach to base camp in late spring, a transient stream has invisibly undercut the snow covering the trail. The leader plunges through, and the resulting leg injury prevents him from continuing on the trip. Without a leader, the climb cannot be completed.

Case 2) A group successfully summits Mt. Rainier. Most have not used prophylaxis for altitude sickness and have made little effort to minimize pack weight, focusing instead on a need for plenty of food and gear for a three-day climb. Halfway down the mountain, all in the party are exhausted, and several have symptoms of mild altitude sickness. At this point, one member develops moderately severe pulmonary edema. To continue, the party decides to redistribute all the weight of the crippled climber. The group pace slows to a crawl (actually, somewhat more of a stagger). The party arrives at the trailhead at midnight after a twenty-four hour climb. During the drive home, one of the party members falls asleep at the wheel.

In a court of law, proving that a few extra ounces carried in any one party member’s pack caused or even contributed to the failures of either of these climbs would be impossible. Nevertheless, excess weight saps a party’s reserves of energy, reduces nimbleness, and slows progress. Less energy means less ability to deal with emergencies. Less agility means increased risk of ankle sprain or worse. Less speed means increased exposure to weather or darkness and increases the potential for exhaustion.

The take-home message: pack as light as possible. It is very easy to find a rationale for taking an extra piece of gear, and even more so if that gear is safety related. You need only imagine a catastrophe against which the gear would help. It is easy to then jam the gear into your pack without further thought. Before you do this, think also about the incremental failure to which the extra weight might contribute, and then make a balanced and appropriate decision. If the gear is a luxury item, think extra hard before bringing it. Even if you are in great shape, with more reserves you will be able to help the rest of the party, should it have to deal with emergencies. Your chances of attaining the summit safely may increase significantly. If you are new to climbing, it may take a few seasons to figure out what it necessity and what is luxury; talk to other climb leaders, your mentor, and others with lots of climbing and scrambling experience to figure out how you can lighten your own pack.

Equally distributing the weight of group gear at the trailhead makes sense and seems fair, but once a party discovers that one or more members tend to bounce ahead while others lag behind, group gear should be redistributed from the laggers to the bouncers. A sense of pride and stoicism usually inhibits laggers from surrendering group gear, but this can increase the overall risk to the party from incremental failures. Refusing to surrender group gear does no one any favors and can actually hurt the rest of the climbers on the trip. An alert trip leader should tactfully insist on such transfers.

Note: after falling asleep at the wheel, the climber awoke instantaneously, missed the guardrail, and made it home.